"Spontaneous Worship" and the Problem of Orthodoxy

Q

I'm a graduate student
from the U.K. studying
'spontaneity in worship',
and I have some
questions about
Quakerism. . . . During your meetings I am aware that anyone who feels the Holy Spirit prompting them can speak. I wonder, how can Orthodoxy be maintained? Do situations arise where sentiments expressed are clearly not in line with, for example, biblical teaching? How is this dealt with, and are there leaders who have some sort of steering capacity?
NL

A

Dear NL,

There are two levels at which I can respond to your question about "spontaneity in worship." One is why maintaining orthodoxy is not a huge problem for Friends. The second is what we do about it on the rare occasions when spoken ministry is considered inappropriate.

At the first level, Friends in the unprogrammed trandition are a noncredal religion. "Orthodoxy" of belief is not what we are about. Some religions define themselves primarily by a clear set of beliefs. If you are Roman Catholic, then you are supposed to believe the statements of the Apostles Creed, for example. But belief, per se, is not what makes a Quaker a Quaker. It's not that we don't have beliefs, but that we don't put them at the center of what we are. Our beliefs have to do with the idea that God is alive and present among us and continues to reveal godself to those who have ears to hear, and that seeking that personal encounter, following that continuing revelation, both individually and as a community, is central. So we are Friends because we participate faithfully in a community that supports and encourages (and yes, sometimes lovingly rebukes) one another in our efforts to know God here and now, and to be guided in daily life.

A British Quaker and sociologist, Ben P. Dandelion, has written much more eloquently than I can about the value of "uncertainty" to Friends in an article for the London Times. See:
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6206864.ece. What Ben writes is an interpretation of how we approach our faith, but I believe it is a very good interpretation.

What about the second level of your question -- what do we do when spoken ministry is clearly inappropriate? I found myself balking at the word "spontaneous," not that it is inaccurate, but it is too easily understood as impulsive. At its best, our spoken ministry in worship is present tense, not prepared or intended in advance. But before we speak we are expected to test our discernment of that ministry, to confirm to the best of our imperfect abilities that it comes from a deeper Source than our own active thoughts or imaginations.

And since we assume that everyone who speaks is in the process of "maturing" in the ministry, we expect and are comfortable with a wide range of messages -- some articulate, some stumbling; some emerging from years of "seasoning," some raw and unrefined. We do not expect to be taught by, spiritually moved, or to agree with all the messages we hear, knowing that some may not have been inspired for our own needs but for others in the room. But we try to listen for any spark of truth that may serve us, even in messages we essentially disagree with.

Only rarely is does a person speak in a way that is truly a problem for the meeting. If it is simply a case of not understanding our approach to ministry, we can be very patient. Sometimes, in extreme such cases, there is a mental health problem involved, and a person becomes a regular disruption.

Every meeting has a way of taking responsibility for the quality of worship. In most meetings, that responsibility is assigned to a committee. In the U.S. we generally call it the "committee on worship and ministry," or "ministry and counsel." Members of this committee may spend time with a person, speak to them, encourage them in one way, gently steer them in another. Only rarely -- usually in mental health situations -- is a problem severe enough that members of the committee will actually interrupt a speaker or ask the person to come with them out of the room. I have seen this happen only a handful of times in my life.

I hope this answers your questions. Peace to you,

Chel Avery

Meeting for Business -- Why Is It the BEST Part of Being a Quaker?

Q
I've heard it said that Business Meeting is one of the best, if not the best, aspects of a Monthly Meeting, and that most people connected with Quaker Meetings do not have an understanding of this. Are you familiar with this line of thinking? Do you agree? I'm one of those who think it might be true, but I'm at a loss when it comes to articulating this sense. Please address this issue. Thank you. Tina Hallidy


A
Dear Tina,

Well, I'm definitely one of those Friends who say that “meeting for business is the best part of being a Quaker,” so I'll tell you my own thoughts on the matter. I should warn you, though, that five other Friends who make the same claim might give you five completely different reasons for explaining it.

Very often, I hear Friends say that meeting for worship is the essential core of what makes us Friends and of what sustains us as a community. Many Friends—including me—agree with that statement. But our ideas diverge about how we see business meeting fitting into that belief. Some Friends see meeting for business as a different kind of animal from meeting for worship, something ancillary or secondary to “real” worship. Others—myself among them—see meeting for worship for business as a special kind of meeting for worship, a deeper, more highly distilled worship that challenges us and requires us to fish or cut bait when it comes to the outward expression of the truths that we enjoy inwardly during worship. It is good to seek to know and follow God in worship. It is a harder but more rigorous kind of worship to seek to know and follow God while we are simultaneously deciding how to balance the budget or whether we must lay down the peace and concerns committee.

In meeting for business we are spiritually exercised. We have to decide when to insist on what we are sure is right, and when to submit to another's discernment; we have to be flexible yet strong, gentle yet plain speaking . . . and then, after our stumbling efforts, we have to walk out of the room and live with ourselves, each other, and the Spirit.

Meeting for business is where it gets real. It's where we succeed or fail at practicing what we believe. It's where we work together or where we fall apart. And it's where we shoulder the load of our shared responsibilities as a covenant community. We all have an ideal image of how wonderful such a functioning community should be. Meeting for business is where we discover who we really are in the ways that we respond to the disappointment of being a mismatched team, pulling the yoke at different speeds, and not always in the same direction. In business meeting we are required to forgive, to be teachable, to care, to take responsibility—both in the large matters of principle and in the tediously mundane details of life.

Like "regular worship," meeting for business can be deeply rewarding or frustrating, and most often it is a mixture of both. It feels great when we find ourselves being led by the Spirit as a whole community, when we find ourselves called to more creative and loving responses than we knew we were capable of, or when we look around the room in amazement and gratitude to be with such wise, bighearted, trustworthy servants of the Spirit. But let's face it, for every one of those really delicious moments, there are others where our desire to get some boring agenda item over with is thwarted by a discussion that just will not end, or when we are annoyed by other Friends' petty judgmentalism, their droning repetitions, their knee-jerk reactions, or their passive mannerliness. And just when we are about to offer a suggestive hint about the mote in their eye, we become aware of the beam that needs plucking from our own. Can we hear and follow our Guide in these circumstances? And if not then, when?

I have been blessed to take part in meetings for business where long, divisive, complicated disputes were finally resolved after years of struggle. These were hard decisions to make, and the topics were painful to some of the participants. But the best spoken ministry I have ever heard, the words that have most deeply moved me and called me closer to God, were delivered during these wrenching discussions that forced us to go deep.

Recently in my own meeting, as we concluded a decision that addressed complex, competing needs from different groups, a member of our meeting said, “Let’s reflect on whether we are being clear about our limits, and whether we are also being generous.” After some reflection—and a little tweaking of our conclusions—this member remarked that we had just completed a piece of work we could not have done in the same way a year earlier. When asked to explain, she used herself as an example, noting how she had become more flexible and more willing to be open minded. Meeting for business not only offers us the opportunity for such growth, but it allows our increasing spiritual maturity an opportunity to be expressed and to be celebrated.

I am one of those people who believe that you cannot be a Quaker alone. Silent worship by ourselves or with others is one way to encounter Truth—but outside of the context of a Friends community, it is too easy for Truth to be a solitary abstraction. It is in making decisions, in putting our limited resources to use, and in working together toward common and competing ends that we are called to make that Truth part of our lives on a minute-by-minute basis, not in ideal form, but in the reality of this flawed world filled with imperfect people such as ourselves. If being a Quaker is “real,” it is real in meeting for worship for business.

With love to the presiding co-clerk from the recording co-clerk of Goshen Meeting,
Chel